Patients Fail to Take Their Medicines

A new study shows that, within 6 months of starting medications
to lower blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol levels, 1 in 3
patients stopped taking those medications. The study focused on
patients with both conditions, who are at a substantially greater
risk of heart disease and cardiac events than patients with either
condition alone. The researchers analyzed a managed care
organization's database and identified more than 8400 patients
who were on both BP and cholesterol medication. They then
tracked these patients' drug regimens for ~13 months. They
found that, after 3 months of receiving the initial prescriptions,
only 44.7% of patients were still taking both medications as prescribed.
This number dropped to <36% at the 6-month and 12-
month marks. The researchers also found that 25.3% to 29.6%
of patients were taking one medicine properly, but failing to follow
instructions for the second drug. Older patients were more
likely not to comply than their younger counterparts, and women
were less likely to adhere to their regimens than men, the
researchers found.

The strongest predictor of adherence was the number of other
medications a patient was already taking in the year prior to starting
the new dual regimen. As the overall number of previous prescriptions
increased, the likelihood of noncompliance also
increased. Also, the time between starting both treatments
seemed to factor into adherence. Patients who started taking
both drugs on the same day or within a month of each other were
34% more likely to stick to both regimens during the 3-year study,
compared with patients who started both drugs up to 3 months
apart.